Sony weighs terrorism threat against movie opening

Tuesday’s threat of terrorism poses an ugly dilemma for Sony and exhibitors: whether to pull "The Interview," caving to hackers who have wreaked havoc with Sony’s digital systems for weeks in an attempt to block the release, or to forge ahead, risking possible violence and potential legal liability.

Photo: AFP /Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — Sony Pictures Entertainment, the FBI, theater owners and competing film studios scrambled Tuesday to deal with a threat of terrorism against movie theaters that show Sony’s "The Interview," a raunchy comedy about the assassination of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.

The threat was made in rambling emails sent to various news outlets Tuesday morning. A version posted by the Hollywood Reporter said, in part: "Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)"

The email specifically aimed its threat at "the very times and places" at which "The Interview" is to be first shown. The film is set for release on Christmas Day.

That threat turned a continuing attack on Sony by hackers from a matter of theft to one of terrorism. A spokeswoman for the FBI said, "We’re aware of the threat and are continuing our investigation into the attack on Sony."

An official with the Department of Homeland Security said the department was analyzing the threat but as yet had found no clear indication of an active plot against theaters. Sony had no comment.

Tuesday’s development posed an ugly dilemma for Sony and exhibitors: whether to pull "The Interview," caving to hackers who have wreaked havoc with Sony’s digital systems for weeks in an attempt to block the release, or to forge ahead, risking possible violence and potential legal liability. In an already fragile industry, studio executives privately voiced concern that any theater violence could swing the market further toward home viewing.

Three people briefed on Sony’s internal discussions Tuesday said the studio had decided to all but invite theater owners to force cancellation or further postponement of "The Interview." Those people spoke on condition of anonymity. The film had been scheduled for fall release and was delayed; the studio cited the need for further work and a better market position.

An executive for one of the theater chains, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, called the invocation of the 9/11 terror attacks by hackers "a game-changer." The executive had last week dismissed the notion that theater owners might shy away from "The Interview" over earlier, more general threats by North Korean officials and pressure from the hackers, who have self-identified as the Guardians of Peace. Nobody yet knows the hackers’ true identity.

Representatives of AMC Entertainment, Regal Entertainment, Cinemark and Carmike Cinemas — which operate the four largest theater chains in North America — did not respond to queries. A spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners, which represents exhibitors, declined to comment.

Pressure to pull the "The Interview," which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and is directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, has centered on its depiction of Kim’s assassination. To depict the killing of a sitting world leader, comically or otherwise, is virtually without precedent in major studio movies, film historians say. Rogen canceled planned publicity interviews Tuesday.

But a broad threat of theater violence, following a sustained attack on Sony’s digital existence, is also without precedent, and opens a new range of worry for Hollywood.

As Sony and exhibitors spoke in a Tuesday afternoon conference call, they were considering pressure from competing studios, whose important holiday films will be playing side-by-side with "The Interview" in multiplexes nationwide.

A further complication is a general reluctance, even in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, theater, to visibly increase security, which might create an impression that multiplexes in general are not safe, and might complicate dealings with their own insurers.